So far Zenimax Online has shown a type of hubris I have never seen from a nascent studio outside of Ion Storm. Developing an MMO for years in a vacuum is insanity. All it'd take to make people excited about this game is a *DEVELOPER* post outlaying some some of the "very innovative" things they are doing. It would be cross posted everywhere and find it's way to journalists. Putting a bunch of artificial barriers between the devs and the fans does not lead to a quality product.

They obviously know whats fully implemented in the game and won't be cut. Gabe Newell said it best when he said, "In this industry there is no prize for being second." So, show us what you're doing that's a "first". I've yet to see anything.

That's the thing; nothing they're doing is a first. That's why they're not telling us about it.

Actually, when you read the article (crazy idea, I know), you'll notice that they outline where the game is different from WoW & Co. over a number of different features. Also, the notion that a game like WoW encourages exploration on the level that the preview article makes it sound like TES:O does is ludicrous, and indicates that you really haven't played WoW.

Alright let's look at the bullets that "point out" the dissimilarities to WoW and the like:

"Working with other players." The only example they give is that you get xp for helping someone even if the monster is tagged. Alright cool, this is a welcome addition.

"Familiar but innovative combat." They say they're 'shaking up' the combat system by severely reducing the number of skills you can have. They're also "adding" stamina, blocking, sprinting, interrupting, and disable breaking.
First, reducing the number of skills you can have isn't innovation, it's simplification. Also, almost every class in WoW has a skill for each blocking, sprinting, interrupting, and disable breaking. Nothing new there...

All of the other bullets explain things they are copying from those 3 mmos. Also, WoW started out forcing exploration on players. The reason WoW doesn't force it anymore is because the game's been out for 8+ years and everyone's seen the world in full plenty of times. Note how every WoW expansion forces you to explore the new continents/areas they add if you want to level up. Again, nothing different here.

In order:

- Yep, that's cool. Funny how you're ignoring that as a pretty important feature that could lead to a huge change in the way people interact with players outside of city hubs.

- I'm willing to bet that we don't have the full story on combat. The GI article mentions the 6-skill style as a positive, which makes me think that there's more to this system than simple reduction. Especially based on the complexity of combining skills within a party that's already been mentioned.

- The article made it very clear that the game encourages exploration very differently than games like WoW do. In WoW, you explore because you have to go find the latest, greatest questing hub, not because you want to discover more of the game world. And the game was actually designed so that once you'd leveled through an area, there was rarely any reason to go back. Based on the very limited information we have, this game is totally different.

Wow, if that's what I think it is I really dont like that idea. Everyone is just going to be the same level and same capped stats inside Cyrodiil? What's the point then? What makes it challenging or interesting?

Have you ever played an MMO?

The actual challenge is from besting an opponent who's actually able to compete with you, not from being repeatedly beat about the head by some bored, lonely nerd with too much time on their hands.

Yea I agree it's a bad experience to be below level inside the open world pvp zone, but this concept just seems like it kills of character diversity. Part of the fun for me in the old days of DAoC was working on different templates for characters with different weapons/armor, and then going out into RvR and running into other characters with custom templates and setups. If we all just load into Cyrodiil already fully stat capped whats the point of mixing and matching armor pieces, or crafting custom pieces? It seems like extreme simplification to me. Like we just pick a fuilly spec'd out avatar and just go and fight.

Whoah there, partner. You jumped to a conclusion that's not even close to what the article states.

The article said that players will have their stats put at level-cap when they go to Cyrodiil. It didn't say anything about gear or character specs being altered.

It will probably be like GW2 where in PvP, gear doesn't mean anything. Everyone is always on even terms with stats and base armor provided. If they have it setup where everyone is on even terms via stats but gear is based on level then Cyrodiil will be worthless anyways if you are not capped lvl with the best gear.

For example so it makes more sense what i'm saying. Lets use WoW gearing as an example.

Say one warrior is 85 and the other 23. They would both have the base stats of an 85 warrior during PvP, however due to the actual 85 warrior having done higher end dungeons/raids, etc. he/she has much better gear as opposed to the lvl 23 warrior. Due to that, the lvl 85 warrior would still have a massive advantage over the 23 even if their base stats were the same making it pointless for the lvl 23 warrior to go head to head with the lvl 85 warrior. If it is like this for the battle of Cyrodiil, then I will be at a loss of words.

Why would you be at a loss for words? This makes more sense than having everyone instantly be equal across the board no matter what armor/weapons they have or what level they are. I mean, of a person Is a higher level, has higher gear, then they should have an advantage over another less armed character. MMORPGs are primarily RPGs...the main aspects are leveling up your character and maxing out his specs, finding better gear, etc. the pvp should not be a fps were everyone just logs in the same with the same weapons and goes at it. There should be advantages and disadvantages with every character in the pvp field. It's what creates different strategies during battle. You have to adjust your tactics to defeat someone better equipped then you. The problem is most devs these days are too lazy to attempt to balance anything. You need some sort of balance between classes, races, and equipment in order to have good pvp. It can be done. I mean DAoC had 21 races and 47 classes and all things considered they did a pretty good job balancing things.

Seems good except for two things:
1 & 2 - Read my signature.

Also, I'm both interested and worried to see how did they rest of the world.
Will it look like Tamriel or some random overused fantasy MMO?

Thanx for the bit of info mate!

Because if you are designing a PvP system where everyone can join in at any level but you ignore dramatic gear differences, it becomes less and less about skill and the lvl 50 vs the lvl 12 becomes more about "lol I can play like garbage and still win because my armor is 10x better then what you have"! It's bad design to take PvP seriously and have gear be a huge factor in the outcome. I can care less when it's pure random, out in the world PvP and people just come out of nowhere and gank you, there's no balancing that, but when it comes to real PvP that's suppose to be taken seriously, It should be 100% skill based and that's that. You want to beat some one face to face? Use your skill and skill alone to win, don't rely on your "get out of jail free card" gear.

Like I said, if they intend for gear to be a big factor in the battle for Cyrodiil, then there is no point for anyone not capped lvl to participate. If I am stuck trying to take down a lvl 50 wearing lvl 50 gear while i'm equipped with a lvl 12 pos sword, that's not going to be a very compelling battle. If it were straight up end game content where everyone had to be capped lvl to participate in the battle then all would be fine since it would be up to you to get your gear. However stating that low lvl characters will be able to participate in the battle and are giving them false hope of being a big help due to stats being brought up is a pretty sly lie if gear makes the full blown difference. A peasant with a pitchfork vs a armed to the teeth Ordinator isn't even a battle, it's a death sentence for the peasant with 0 skill involved.

You mean scrap everything they have and start on a new game, cause that's the only way that would happen. The best you could wish for is they change the color scheme to a more gritty darker fantasy look and hope the combat is good as is .

Note that I say 'as much as possible'.
Still, it wouldn't kill them tough to release an expansion where they do that and change both art style and turn combat into a proper action combat.

This article did nothing to reassure me this isn't exactly what we fear - WoW with Daedra. That comment is obviously directed at the community who have (largely) blown up over the announcement; but the article does nothing to convince me otherwise.

Waste of bandwidth.

Except Zenimax's little pile of money is dwarfed by the kind of money a company earning 150 million a month in subscriptions can put in.

yeah the article was pointless

Ditto.

The post i was replying too said this -

"So Zenimax basically threw an enormous amount of money to polish MMO features already existing in other MMO games?"

i was being slightly sarcastic in saying ' hey its worked perfect before right", but as sarcastic as i 'wanted' it to sound its actually 100% truth, thats all WoW did ( they did NOT have 150 mill a month coming in at that time) and it worked great but that was in a different time in the MMORPG genre and i never said it was actually a good idea for TES.

too many people dont understand PvP: unbalanced PvP is NOT fun. Dont think it is, you only thing it is if youre the one winning.

Zenimax, being a private company, has no publically known value, but it's often estimated to be one of the largest media empires in the industry. Since 2007 they've obtained $450 million in known third-party investments, to say nothing of whatever private money is put up by its founders, and whatever it turns over in profits per annum. Blizzard, on the other hand, is known to operate very small groups of employees (usually 50 to 80 on each title) and furthermore, it has been repeatedly stated that 'Titan' is very dissimilar to WoW and hence they don't anticipate that it'll greatly reduce subscription numbers. Accordingly, I think the idea of Titan being some ridiculously expensive endeavour is unlikely. Probably, it'll be as much as SW:TOR and TESO - perhaps or even a bit more - but we're not talking several orders of magnitude more expensive or anything like that. And, at least in theory, Zenimax could match Blizzard dollar for dollar right up into the hundreds of millions, if they honestly thought a project deserved the investment. The difference is more likely to be in the core premise of the game.

But the point is, unless Blizzard is going for some obscenely expensive new title - say $500 million for development, which is massively unlikely - there's nothing on the table that Zenimax couldn't match.

Oh yeah, and $150 million in revenue isn't $150 million in profits. You also have to account for upkeep, which is substantial, as well as taxes.